Lize

- "Lize" by Smog, from The Doctor Came at Dawn (1996)

Halftime

Bright little mishaps

Notes on Longing

"Notes on Longing"

It smells of after-rain tonight.
Duck bones, a wounded egg on rice.
On the corner, there is a shop
that makes keys, keys that open
human doors, doors that lead
to rooms that hold families
of four or seven who sit at a table.
There is a mother who brings
sizzling flounder on a wide platter
for the family whose ordinary
mouths have been made to sing.

- by Tina Chang, from Half-Lit Houses (2004)

Old Time Lovin'

I can't believe it took me 23 years to find and appreciate this album. If you've got forty minutes to listen, I urge you to check out Al Green's Let's Stay Together in its entirety.

I could write a whole essay about my experience of music, and how few artists of color I've actively sought out in my life. And I hope I will—in a distracted frenzy, I just abandoned this post for 30 minutes to write a pitch on that very topic.

First things first, though: if you do nothing else today, spend three minutes with this song.

-"Old Time Lovin'" by Al Green, from Let's Stay Together (1972)

The Value of Poetry

Some scrambled thoughts before an appointment:

Our culture has always impressed upon me the value of hard work. As a self-proclaimed "poet," I hold no illusions about the imposed financial value of my work. I will never pay my bills writing poetry, and I am okay with that. I remind myself that many writers had trying day jobs: Maya Angelou was a cable car conductor. John Clare was a thresher. Junot Díaz worked in a steel mill.

As a young professional, though, I'm struggling more and more to find the balance between my types of work. My full-time job pays my bills. My unpaid volunteer work at New Letters on the Air helps me endure the full-time job, and may one day help me step into a paying job that I love. I'm beyond happy to be there, even if it means working longer hours. But after all those hours, I'm exhausted. I don't want to write. I don't even want to be around my friends. I just want to stay in and watch Curb Your Enthusiasm until it's time to go to bed and start the whole process over.

This is the hard work that everyone keeps talking about.

In today's America, where we value labor solely based on its economic worth, how are artists supposed to do their damn jobs? (And what of the artists who aren't nearly as privileged as I am?) When did we cease to champion creative endeavors? The answer, of course, is that we never much valued artists' contributions, at least not in the same way we value bankers' and lawyers'. And that's a problem. Art is the lens through which we see ourselves, as a collective and as individuals. It helps us find versions of the truth, most importantly those truths that are not quite comfortable or easy. That perspective is priceless.

Last Friday at New Letters, we were pulling together a show with writer Judith Ortiz Cofer, and she described her routine of waking up at 5 a.m. every morning to write, simply because it was the only time she could find. She sacrificed sleep and relationships to be able to find those hours, which is strangely comforting. Her priorities are evidence—to me, anyway—that it's impossible to have everything, and that that is okay. (I'm looking at you, Sheryl Sandberg.)

I'm trying hard myself to be comfortable with those sacrifices. Eventually, I'll get there.

You can hear this week's show here if you're interested.

As always, thank you for reading.

Daisies

Celebrating another first draft; delaying another revision.

-Daisies (1966), directed by Věra Chytilová

The Time of the Seizin'

It's been a little while since I posted here, for a lot of reasons. I traveled to Oregon last week (to the Portland friends I didn't get to see--I'm sorry!). One of my S.O.'s old friends got married, so a group of us went out to explore and celebrate. While we were there, we hiked, played in the ocean, and visited the hospital after I had a seizure.

Before I go any further: everything is totally fine. I am safe and alive and intact, and I don't mean to worry anyone.

That said, I don't really know what caused it. I was lucky to be with a friend when it happened, and she called 911 and made sure I didn't, like, choke on my own drool or anything. I don't have words to express my gratitude to her. When the ambulance arrived, I was apparently insistent that someone else had seized and that I was completely fine. Hopefully the paramedics saw the humor in that.

The ER team who took care of me was friendly and efficient. They advised me to get a bunch of tests and to avoid driving. For the foreseeable future, I'll be taking the bus and sleeping a lot. My brain still seems a little foggy, and my short-term memory doesn't feel as sharp, but I'm confident that'll go away in due time. Writing has also been more difficult, which is perhaps the scariest consequence of all this, but I'm choosing to attribute that to temporary stress.

The most likely medical outcome, I am told, is that all my tests come back normal. We probably won't know what caused the seizure, and it probably won't ever happen again. At the same time, there's a small chance there's something more traceable at play: I've collapsed in the past, and it's possible that those instances were undiagnosed seizures. I'm skeptical of this possibility, and optimistic that everything will be back to normal very soon.

Aside from all of that, the trip was incredible, for a lot of reasons. We went to Cannon Beach, hiked up Multnomah Falls, had a great time at the wedding, and ate some of the best Thai food I think I've had. These experiences, to me, were far more important than one brief scare, and they'll stick with me for far longer. I'll try to share some photos soon.

Thank you, as always, for taking the time to read these words. This whole experience has been a solid reminder of the love and care in my life. I'm lucky to have so many remarkable, generous, and warm-hearted people looking out for me. I hope I never take that for granted. A million times, thank you.

Only Success Can Fail Me Now

When I was in middle school, my family got satellite Internet. It was a big deal: we lived on unincorporated land without access to public water or sewage. Having dial-up was exciting enough, but I was ready to explore the Internet within our new 200-megabyte-per-24-hours threshold.

Typing that now, I want to laugh.

By far, the most exciting prospect of having "high-speed" Internet was the ability to find new music. LimeWire was finally within my reach! There were about a hundred different bands I wanted to listen to, so I got to downloading. I could queue up two, maybe even three songs for download, and they'd be on my computer in an evening.

I felt like royalty.

Because these early (and admittedly, illegal and ethically-questionable) downloads were so scarce, I listened to those few songs constantly. I can still remember most of them: "Messes of Men" by mewithoutYou, "Saltwater" by Beach House, and lots of other indie pop that I was so proud of.

I still love those songs. To be honest, I'm probably more "hip" and self-righteous today than I was as a thirteen-year-old, but more on this later.

One of the most memorable songs I found was called "Only Success Can Fail Me Now," by Quasi. (Interestingly, the band was formed by ex-husband and -wife Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss, later of Sleater-Kinney fame, who had decided they were better off as musical partners.) This song was one of their few I could find on LimeWire, and I snatched it up before listening obsessively. For months, I burned that song onto many mix CDs, because it was "cool" to listen to obscure bands from the Pacific Northwest.

At the same time, it was—and still is—a genuinely good song. Not the best song ever written, and maybe not even the best song on its album, but one that has stayed with me. Even now, a decade later, I find small surprises in the melody; the instrumentation. Who knows whether I'd feel the same appreciation if I listened to this song for the first time today? That's part of the beauty of truly loving a piece of music: it grows with you, through time and circumstance.

- "Only Success Can Fail Me Now" by Quasi, from Featuring "Birds" (1998)

Retrospectively

It sounds like an overwrought and clichéd story: tortured artist kills himself after the death of his girlfriend.

This was the case for Jeremy Blake, who allegedly walked into the ocean and drowned himself. A week earlier, he'd found his girlfriend, blogger and video game designer Theresa Duncan, dead in the apartment they shared above St. Mark's Church (which has its own fascinating history). According to friends, the couple had been acting erratically. They told stories of being followed and harassed by Scientologists, and went so far as to make their friends sign loyalty pledges to ensure they weren't agents of Scientology. In short, she and Blake were both scared, and they didn't seem to be in good health. Their loved ones were worried, but no one had expected their deaths, just a week apart in July of 2007.

Blake and Duncan in Venice, CA, photographed by Bret Haller

It would be impossible to sit here and give a concrete reason for their suicides, which, like most, are shrouded in uncertainty. The mystery behind their deaths has overshadowed any creative successes they achieved, as evidenced by not only this blog post, but several trendy magazine profiles published after they died. (Here is one from Vanity Fair, and another from New York Magazine.)

The work they left behind, I'd argue, is a far more compelling and enriching glimpse of what and how they thought. With that in mind, here are pieces of their work: a series of video games produced by Duncan for young female audiences, and a digital video made by Blake and inspired by Sarah Winchester.

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Rhizome and the New Museum present:
Chop Suey, Smarty, and Zero Zero
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- "Winchester Redux," by Jeremy Blake (2004)